MUCUS. 83 



The numbers are calculated for 1000 parts : 



Analysis 89. 



Water .... 94175 



Solid constituents . . . 5 8 -2 5 



Fat with traces of cholesterin . . 5'01 



Spirit-extract, with lactates and chloride of sodium 11-09 



Alcohol-extract . . . 6*95 



Cells, mucin, and a little albumen . 34-80 



In a case of severe bronchitis that recently occurred in 

 Schonlein's clinical wards, the patient expectorated purulent 

 mucus, which, when placed in water, assumed a delicate arbo- 

 rescent form, the ultimate fibrils floating on the water when the 

 slightest motion was communicated to the vessel. When placed 

 in acetic acid, it swelled and became converted into a trans- 

 parent jelly, and after long digestion almost entirely dissolved; 

 the solution being precipitable by ferrocyanide of potassium. 

 Under the microscope the fibrils resembled coagulated fibrin, 

 and there can be no doubt that plastic lymph was exuded as a 

 consequence of the bronchitis, and expectorated in a coagu- 

 lated form. [Observations on the sputa in bronchitis and 

 pneumonia may be found in Scherer's ( Untersuchungen/ 

 pp. 93-97.] 



Gruby states that the sputa expectorated during the ordi- 

 nary inflammatory affections of the mucous membrane of the 

 respiratory organs, are, at the commencement of a catarrh, 

 white, transparent, and mixed with gray flocculi ; under the mi- 

 croscope they are seen to contain a few round vesicles with 

 granular contents, and numerous epithelium-cells, swimming in 

 a transparent fluid. As the catarrh gets worse, the gray floc- 

 culi increase, and become more of a yellow colour, and the 

 amount of transparent mucus decreases ; the coloured flocculi 

 contain numerous cells with granular contents (molecular gra- 

 nules) and a central cell, which are all connected together by 

 very tough mucus. As the inflammation decreases the amount 

 of this globular sputa diminishes, and it assumes a whiter colour. 



Purulent Mucus. 



If the mucous membranes or the tissues immediately beneath 

 them pass into a state of suppuration, pus becomes mixed with 

 the secreted mucus : in this mariner the mucus of the lungs, 

 bladder, intestinal canal, generative organs, &c. may contain 



